


little soldier boy

by cooliopio



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28573737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooliopio/pseuds/cooliopio
Summary: Kain Fuery has an empty hollowness in his eyes upon his return to central; being sent to the southern border to fight in the border skirmishes with Aerugo was hell.-“A panic attack, sir?” Havoc asked, “What could have given him a panic attack?”Breda, for the first time in their impromptu rendezvous, spoke up, “Wasn’t he reassigned to southern command when we were all relocated as a part of Bradley’s plans? Is it possible he was put on the battlefield, sir?”Mustang nodded, “communications officer in the trenches.”“The trenches? Fuck. Not that kid. He didn’t deserve that.”-Fuery is struggling coming to terms with what he's seen on the battlefield, but luckily team mustang is there to support him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	little soldier boy

**Author's Note:**

> not beta'd im so sorry. T for language

Kain Fuery has an empty hollowness in his eyes upon his return to central. No one really noticed it, at first; everyone was in and out of the hospital after the events of the promised day, and if they weren’t in the hospital, they were helping take care of the carnage that became of central command and central city in general. Kain was happy to be back in the company of his most valued friends, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was drowning.

Being sent to the southern border to fight in the border skirmishes with Aerugo was hell to the young sergeant. He joined the military academy so he could make himself useful in an office job, gathering intelligence from the sidelines. He knew that it was cowardly—but he wasn’t delusional. He knew that he was weak and young, and that he didn’t possess the courage that of his peers: so patriotic and willing to put their lives on the line for Amestris.

Though, Master Sergeant Kain Fuery has seen a fair amount of action in the years he was stationed at central command, and then central command, with his trusted commanding officer Colonel Mustang. The difference between the action that occurred in the office and on the battlefield was just the sheer _chaos_ and scale of it. When he was in the field back at east and central, he was on the radio working comms in a relatively safe location, maybe firing his gun in defense once or twice when things got hasty. But in the trenches, it was constant firing and explosions. It was his comrades dying day in and out. It was the dampness that stuck to the dirt making it hard to breath in the southern air.

Kain recalls often walking through the general encampment area of the trenches, the ‘safer’ areas, further from the front lines—as far as they could get to them, as all of the trenches _were_ the front lines—seeing wounded soldiers sagging into themselves on the ground, head either dangling limp or in their dry, bloody cracked hands; he remembers soldiers with panic in their eyes trying to dry out their socks of all things as to not get trench foot—damned wool held onto moisture too desperately.

He was just a radio-geek. A radio-geek from the suburbs.

And then he wasn’t: he was a soldier, expendable to command, just another _pawn_ in the plan.

Suddenly, being a _pawn_ didn’t seem so appealing to him, anymore.

The weariness from the trenches stuck with him, and so did the habits. He was jumpy, now, reacting a touch too severely to loud noises or groans of pain. The smell of iron; the smell of dirt.

Nights in his small military dorm passed slowly for Kain, often startling awake from a nightmare after just a few moments rest.

Slowly, after the fallout from the near destruction of Amestris and it’s people, the team began to notice his demeanor.

First, when he visited Lieutenant Hawkeye in the infirmary after she was stable and declared fit for visitors, she noticed how he seemed to shrink into himself—his boyish excitement missing from his presence. His conversation was small and soft, and he avoided eye contact. He saluted weakly when he left.

Then, once they all returned to office a few months after, Havoc silently came behind Fuery while he was sitting and placed his hand on Fuery’s shoulder while saying something in greeting. The unsuspecting sergeant was so startled he briefly jumped out of his chair with an almost fearful shout, eyes wide with apprehension and shoulders up to his ears before he realized who his assailant was and relaxed back into his seat. The other members of the team present in the office, which was just Breda, at the time, exchanged concerned looks.

On a Friday three months after the promised day, Ishvalan restoration plans in its fledgling state, Kain Fuery had a panic attack. It was unnoticed by everyone else, but Mustang-- he saw. He watched as his pawn became increasingly restless, leg bouncing, fidgeting with his hands, chest heaving with increasing speed, before he altogether clumsily raised himself out of his desk chair, made a flimsy declaration of a latrine break, and all but ran out of the office. The others, engrossed in their work, hadn’t noticed the irritable nature of their youngest member; their eyes were on their paperwork, flipping through books about the history of Ishval, sifting through intel and arranging call-back memos. Mustang, however, the known slacker, saw it all.

“Lieutenant, Havoc, Breda. Please follow me to my office,” the Colonel frowned as he stood and paced to the door leading to the inner office, holding the door open for his subordinates filing in on his request.

He put his men at ease, and sat on the edge of his desk, thumb and index finger stroking his chin as he struggled to put his thoughts together.

“Have you guys noticed anything… off… about Sergeant Fuery, recently?” he inquired.

The men in front of him stood frozen for a moment, absorbing their commanding officer’s strange question. But the longer they stood, the more they realized it wasn’t so strange.

Havoc cleared his throat, “yeah, actually,” he paused to take the cigarette out of his mouth, “the other week, I went to tell him something and he nearly pissed himself I startled him so badly. Kid looked terrified.”

Mustang nodded, adding this piece to the puzzle.

Hawkeye spoke up next, “I did notice, sir, that his demeanor was significantly more subdued after the promised day, but I chalked it up as the exhaustion of the day, sir. Was my assumption incorrect?”

Mustang shook his head, “not wrong, no. That certainly played part in it.” Mustang sighed, “I don’t think Fuery just left on latrine break. I’m pretty positive he has a panic attack.”

“A panic attack, sir?” Havoc asked, “What could have given him a panic attack?”

Breda, for the first time in their impromptu rendezvous, spoke up, “Wasn’t he reassigned to southern command when we were all relocated as a part of Bradley’s plans?”

The team looked at him with confusion, clearly wishing for some further clarification.

“Is it possible he was put on the battlefield, sir?” Breda sounded devastated at the prospect.

“It might be. I could call personnel and see,” the Colonel suggested, met with approving glances.

Mustang stood and made his way over to the phone in the corner of the office, dialing the extension to personnel.

“This is Colonel Mustang. I’m requesting the assignment history for Master Sergeant Kain Fuery… My reason? I’m his commanding officer… yes, I see how that--… _Please_ … Thank you… Could you tell me the details of his station beginning four months ago, in the south?... I see… I see… thank you,” Mustang put the phone back on its hanger with resignment and turned slowly to his men.

Mustang nodded, “communications officer in the trenches.”

Breda moaned in disbelief, Havoc swore, and Hawkeye’s eyes gleamed with dreadful understanding; Fuery is not much older than she was when she was assigned to Ishval.

“The trenches? Fuck,” Havoc continued in his tirade, “not that kid. He didn’t deserve that.”

Breda hummed in agreement, “he saw some shit. And it’s coming back to haunt him, it seems.”

“What do we do? To help him, I mean.”

“I don’t know. How do you help someone with that?”

Riza interrupted the two men, “Roy—Colonel Mustang, I mean, and I were on the frontlines with each other in Ishval. We had to help each other get through that, and the thing that helped us the most with our darkest demons was just having someone to talk to.”

“Having someone to talk to?” Havoc replied, “shit, we can do that. But how do we expect to get him to speak to us. He’s always been a bit closed off in the personal area of things with us.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Hawkeye was quick to amend, “but I believe that is because of his position within the team when it comes to age and rank. I think we need to talk to him somewhere out of uniform where we can all be on level ground.”

“Is all of us talking to him at once the best idea?” Mustang questioned.

“I think it would be nice for him to know all of us have his back,” Breda soothed.

“Alright,” Havoc declared, “I think it’s better to talk to him sooner rather than later. We’re going out for drinks tonight at Madame’s. No objections, we have the day off tomorrow, anyway. I’ll say something in the office before we leave to get him on board. You guys just have to agree, alright?”

The team nodded in approval. Havoc really was the most logical person when it came to trying to get others to go out for a night of debauchery.

-

After Havoc fumbled an excuse for an outing to the bar with a reluctantly agreeing Fuery, they all found themselves in a round booth at Madame Christmases, Fuery intentionally seated on the outside in case he felt he needed to escape.

They had a couple rounds of regular drinks, getting the alcohol flowing in their system, loosening their lips. It was a regular night, swapping stories and jokes, but no one forgot why they were really there.

“So,” Havoc started a bit awkwardly, “Fuery, where’d you end up when we all got separated?”

The rest of the table seemed to sober substantially as they got to the main purpose of the night.

“Oh, uh,” Kain stuttered, caught off guard by the question, “I got sent to the south.”

“The south, huh,” Havoc prodded at Fuery’s unwillingness to talk unprompted, “I hear it’s hot there. Real dry.”

Kain hiccupped, “Y-yeah, it can get pretty dry. Especially when you were outside a lot.”

Havoc closed his eyes and nodded, trying to keep a conversational air, “were you outside a lot, then? Out in the field doing radio things?”

“I guess you could say that” Kain mumbled.

“Man,” Breda interjected, salvaging the dying embers of the conversation, “bet you had it way better than Falman. He’s practically turned into a snowman up north.” Breda knew Fuery did not have it better.

Kain signed loudly, taking another swig of his drink, mumbling, “what I would give to have been stationed at Briggs instead.”

“What do you mean by that, Kain?” Hawkeye prodded, knowing he was more vulnerable to her inquiries.

“O-oh. They put me in a rough spot in the south. The north probably would have been more pleasant.”

“A rough spot? What kind of rough spot?”

Kain hesitated, eyes apprehensive and weary, yet steeled and defensive.

“You can tell us, Kain,” Hawkeye persuaded, “we’ve all seen some things. Especially after the promised day. We won’t judge you.”

Fuery lessened his guard, yet still didn’t speak.

“Damn it, Fuery,” Mustang near shouted without malice, “I’m a bonafide war criminal. Nothing you can say will make me think you weak.”

Fuery gave a resigned sigh as he absent-mindedly rotated his glass on the table, condensation collecting at the bottom.

“I was, uh, redirected the front lines when I arrived at southern command. Their previous communications officer, well, uh, he had gotten _injured._ So, I was sent out in replacement.”

Everyone knew what he meant by injured, and it did not insinuate the person alive.

“The front lines? You mean like the trenches?” Breda asked for faux clarification, already knowing the answer, but wanting to hear it come from him.

Kain gave a slight nod.

Havoc gave a low whistle, “that must’ve been rough.”

Kain gave a wry laugh, smiling without joy, “you could say that.”

“Have any of the rest of you been in combat?” Hawkeye asked the others at the table.

Breda shook his head, “I was stationed at Western Command when the war was in full swing and I had already gone through officer training. I wasn’t needed, nor could I be deployed.”

Havoc nodded, “kind of. I _was_ in Ishval, but my involvement was nowhere near that of Mustang and Hawkeye’s. I was still in the academy as well—Reez and I were in the same year. Though my shooting was nowhere near the level it is now, and I was only sent in for clean-up duty cleating the rubble after them since I was just a regular ole cadet.”

Hawkeye nodded, “I’d imagine, Kain, that you weren’t just on clean up duty?”

“No, not exactly,” he grated out, “I never shot if it wasn’t out of self-defense. My job was to go the very front of the trenches, both the east and west sides, and radio back into the commander with the report, which consisted of the engagement status, how many men down, and any messages from the squadron leaders.”

“They had you that up close?” Hawkeye asked, genuinely shocked.

Kain took another swig of his drink, as he had been doing through this conversation, “yeah,” he said, voice thick with emotion and his liquor, “I remember one time when the radios went down, and I was running under active fire trying to get the connection back up to call in reinforcements as my partner tripped—the radio equipment was large, one person carried the actual radio transmitter and the other carried the box that was needed to get the transmitter to, well, transmit the signal. But my partner tripped, and I turned back to help him up. Right as I turned a grenade flew in and exploded on top of him. Shrapnel got me pretty good, but I lived. Can’t say the same for Private Hisch,” Kain stared ruefully into his glass.

“Was that that the worst of it?” Havoc poked.

“’Was that the worst of it,’ he asks,” Kain mocked. “No. The worst of it was being the only soldier on the west side of the trenches for 500 yards, no radio to call in because it got fucking exploded, and the enemy troops firing and approaching.”

The table was silent, shocked with his crude words. Fuery never swore.

“What… what did you do?” Breda asked carefully. Mustang and Hawkeye had no problem letting the wonder twins spearhead this delicate conversation—they had always been closer to Fuery.

Kain huffed, “I took out my piss poor excuse of a gun, dropped my equipment, fired back when I needed to, and fucking ran until I got to the people with real weapons and a fucking spine,” he concluded harshly and self-condemning.

“Is that what’s got you so skittish?” Mustang asked. Riza elbowed him in the side,

“Of course that’s what’s got him skittish. I was no better after Ishval, nor were you, mister ‘no cooking pork in my vicinity.’” Riza gave a resigned sigh, “Kain,” she looked to the man in question seriously, “are you alright?”

Kain was startled by the sincerity in her voice and eyes, “O-oh! Uh, I suppose!”

Mustang turned to him, now, equally sincere, “Kain, I know you aren’t. I saw you leave the office today panicking. What’s going on?”

Kain looked at the other members of the table, taking in the situation. He didn’t like the pitying looks on his coworkers faces. Kain frowned grimly.

“What is this, a fucking intervention?” he snapped harshly. “Oh my fucking god, it _is_ ,” he bemoaned when no one denied it, unsure glances bouncing between them, “I can’t believe this! I’m fucking fine! You all have no right budding into my life like this! And you knew I was having a panic attack, Mustang?! What, you fucking spying on me or some shit? Can’t find anything better to do with your time?” he spat, chest heaving with shallow breaths, eyebrows furrowed in anger, though his eyes filled with fearful defense.

Riza, sat next to Fuery, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, stilling his trembling fists, “Kain. We’ve just been concerned for you. You’ve been acting off ever since you returned. We’re _worried,_ Kain. We’re not trying to be mean or patronize you. We want to _help._ Fuck, Kain, If I didn’t have anyone to talk to after the war, I’d be six feet under,” she said seriously, desperate and pleading for Kain to see the situation from their point of view. “We’re here for you, and want to listen to you, and get you through whatever’s haunting you.”

Kain let out a shuddering breath, calming instantly. He slouched back into the booth shamefully.

The group often forgot how nice and, dare they say, _motherly_ when she wasn’t about to blow a hole through the colonel for procrastinating.

“I know,” Kain whispered, rubbing at his eyes with his head in his hand, “I know. I’ve just been so… frazzled lately.” He looked up at the colonel, “I’m sorry for snapping at you, sir. Please don’t punish me too severely. I didn’t mean it.”

Mustang looked aghast, “punish you?! Fuery, we’re not here on business. We’re not here in uniform, and you lot are certainly not _reporting_ to me right now. There’s nothing to punish you for. You have a right to be angry, after that, Fuery.”

Kain nodded, more to himself than Mustang. “Okay. Okay.”

Havoc lightly patted Kain’s arm from across the table, “We’re here for you, man. The military isn’t without it’s light trauma.”

Kain laughed a little less hollowly this time, “light trauma?! If that’s light, I’d like to see what’s heavy trauma.”

“You don’t,” said both Mustang and Hawkeye at the same time, and then promptly gave each other bewildered looks before bursting out laughing.

Soon, the rest of the table joined in laughing, continuing the light hearted conversation of the night, knowing their youngest member would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos/Comments appreciated!  
> Tumblr: @unfairlawyer
> 
> post-post note: i was re reading the manga and caught the detail that they DID know Fuery was on the battlefront in the south, but for the sake of the fic we can all pretend that they just didnt know how involved his work in the trenches were, ok???????? ok :))))


End file.
